


The Collector

by Sarcasticles



Category: One Piece
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-20 22:00:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21288839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarcasticles/pseuds/Sarcasticles
Summary: It’s been six years since Ohara burned, and Robin was running out of options.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25





	The Collector

There was a house that stood on a hill tall and proud. To reach it one followed a long, winding road that hugged the coastline east of the port city and into the flourishing countryside. The yard was vibrant green and neatly trimmed, the shutters freshly painted. The shadow of an apple tree fell over the front porch. 

And surrounding the house was a wall seven feet high, with spikes of metal and broken glass protruding from the top to discourage curious passersby. A roll of barbed wire completed the picture of paranoia and hid the half-dozen den-den mushi who carefully monitored the outlying estate. 

After six years on the run from the World Government Robin appreciated the sentiment the safeguards implied, but had to shake her head at the futility of it all. She could think of a dozen Devil Fruits able to circumvent the precautions—not the least being her own—and knew that not even the large bar across the front gate would protect the owner of the house against a determined band of pirates. 

Almost unwittingly, Robin’s hand went protectively over her bruised ribs. She left her last crew on poor terms, just as she had left the one before that, and the one before _ that_, and suffered dearly for it. She wanted, she _ hoped_, to be able to rest awhile before setting out again. 

Robin didn’t put much stock in hope these days.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, Robin pressed the buzzer at the gate and settled into a nonchalant stance, her ears straining against the indistinct sounds of nature for anything amiss. She had already sent her eyes ahead and seen nothing out of sorts, but prudence demanded that she stay vigilant. 

A den-den mushi aroused itself, static bursting from the mounted device on its back. “_The professor isn’t receiving visitors today. Please come again when you have an appointment_.”

Robin frowned slightly. Pressing the buzzer again, she told the little snail, “Tell the professor Nico Robin would like to speak with him. It’s…it’s about Ohara.”

She held her breath, knowing the enormous risk she was taking even as she spoke. There was a terrible silence, the expression on the den-den mushi unreadable. It stretched almost to the breaking point, the soft hiss of white noise only accentuating the lack of response. 

It couldn’t have been more than a minute or two, but it felt like an eternity before Robin saw a figure emerge from the house. The man had the air of a household servant, and there was no hiding the fear in his eyes as he opened the gate. 

“This way, Miss Nico. The professor will see you now.”

* * *

Robin was eight years old when she took the exam to become a licensed archeologist. She fondly recalled the pride she felt when Professor Clover told her he would sponsor her attempt, declaring to all the world he thought her a worthy addition to the scholars of the Tree of Knowledge. 

He, of course, wasn’t allowed to directly participate in the exam process. The Historiological Society was an international body overseen by the World Government and encompassed dozens upon dozens of accredited institutions across the Four Blues and the Grand Line. In the name of academic integrity there could be no conflict of interest, perceived or real, and for Robin’s own sake it was decided an outside party was required. 

In a way her youth had been a blessing. Ordinarily she would have been made to travel to a neutral site to test with would-be scholars from all over the West Blue, but that was deemed impractical. Instead she stayed at the Tree of Knowledge, where she was proctored by representatives sent by the World Government itself. 

Of the men and women who visited the Tree of Knowledge that day, she only remembered one by name, and that was because of his curious relationship with the Oharan archeologists. Long before Robin was even born, Professor Theodore Thicket had been a student of Professor Clover. He left the Tree of Knowledge to pursue his own research and eventually came into a teaching position at a university in the northernmost corner of the West Blue. 

When she heard of this connection Robin couldn’t help but wonder why Professor Thicket left in the first place. There wasn’t a library like Ohara anywhere in the world, nor were there scholars more respected than those who trained at the Tree of Knowledge. When she asked Professor Clover had only smiled and said that it wasn’t always that simple, before quickly changing the subject. 

No one knew that better than Robin did now. She spared a last, fleeting glance at the barbed wire and jagged pieces of broken glass before following the butler into the house. The manservant led her to a spacious sitting room heavily decorated with historical artifacts from all over the globe. Robin recognized an Alabastian statue, pottery from the country of Kano, and a ceremonial dagger with a hilt carved in the form of a snake, as was typical for the island of Amazon Lily. A bookcase dominated the entire back wall, with detailed maps centuries old and intricate pieces of art decorating the rest. The air was filled with the smell of ink and paper dust. 

It felt like home.

“My, my, my. Look how you’ve grown.”

Robin snapped out of her reverie. Professor Thicket was much like she remembered him: a small, slender man nearly sixty years of age, who carried himself with the air of a distinguished statesman. He walked with a cane, which he didn’t need, and regarded her behind a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles, which he did. His eyes were clever, his smile winsome, and his manner easygoing. Other than the decor, the only thing belying his profession were the patches of reinforcing material on the elbows of his tweed jacket, and a small stain of ink on his writing hand.

“Professor Thicket. It’s been too long,” Robin said. She made no move to shake his hand, and he did not stir from his seat. There was a too-long pause, and Robin became all the more aware that she was a wanted criminal standing in the living room of a stranger. 

“Douglas, fetch us some tea, will you?” Professor Thicket said, never once moving his eyes from hers. “That batch that’s just come in from the South Blue. I find that there’s nothing quite like it in all the world.”

With a small bow the manservant left, and Professor Thicket tented his fingers thoughtfully. “I’ll admit, this is a surprise. Not an unwelcome one, but a surprise nonetheless. Clover spoke very highly of you.”

“He did?”

“My dear girl, how else do you think he convinced us to allow you sit on your exams?” Professor Thicket said, his tone gently chiding. “I thought it was another one of his mad ideas. Why, I wasn’t allowed to test until I was twenty-one, and even that was nearly unprecedented in my day. But times change, and you did well enough, I suppose. There aren’t many who can boast that they passed with a perfect score.”

“That was a long time ago,” Robin said softly, surprised he would remember a silly little thing like that. She swallowed hard, unable to keep all of the desperation from her voice. “You knew the professor. You knew the people who studied at the Tree of Knowledge and what they were looking for. I’m trying to do the same, but I need help.”

She fell silent as Douglas returned with tea and sandwiches. Professor Thicket took his time selecting one for himself while tea was poured for the both of them. After a moment the professor gestured for her to sit. Robin obeyed only reluctantly. She felt the butler’s eyes boring into her back, and saw that he stood in the way of the room’s only exit.

“You’ve put me in a difficult position,” Professor Thicket said between delicate bites. “I came under suspicion when Ohara fell. Government officials, Cipher Pol, the marines…I’ve had to deal with them all, and I’ve only made it this far by telling the truth. They’re like bloodhounds. The moment they suspect even the barest hint of rebellion they come swooping in, shooting first and asking questions later.”

“I know,” Robin said 

“The scandal nearly cost me my position,” Professor Thicket continued. “I took a leave of absence, wrote a book…I don’t suppose you’ve heard of it, but that’s how I regained my credibility as a historian and scholar. I told Clover years ago I wanted nothing to do with what he was searching after, and he _ still _ nearly brought me to ruin.”

His eyes flickered to a large grandfather clock at the back of the room. The crow’s feet at the corner of his eyes deepenened, anxiety flashing across his face. A sip of tea and the expression was gone, but when he spoke again there was no mistaking his bitterness. “That doesn’t mean I’m not watched. I’m grateful for my time at Ohara, truly I am, but for all I know they could have seen you now. You could have been followed—“

“I wasn’t.”

“Excuse me?” Professor Thicket said, startling slightly. He looked at Robin with owlish surprise, like he couldn’t quite believe she dared to interrupt him. 

“I wasn’t followed, and I wasn’t seen,” Robin said. “And I’m not asking for you to publically decry the atrocities of the World Government. I just need…help.”

“And what sort of help do you think I could give to someone in your position?”

His tone was snide, almost sarcastic, but Robin latched onto the fact that he hadn’t refused her outright. “You have a library. I can’t continue Ohara’s research if I don’t have access to materials.” She paused as a gamut of emotion flashed across the professor’s face, from astonishment, to disbelief, to outright fear. She clenched her hands into fists, concentrating on the pain of her nails cutting into her palms to keep herself under control.

“You and I both know that Professor Clover wanted nothing to do with the Ancient Weapons._ I _ want nothing to do with the Ancient Weapons. But the truth of the Void Century needs to be told. I know what I’m asking of you, and if you say no…if you say no I’ll leave and never come back.”

She opened her mouth to continue, but realized there was nothing else to say. It was a simple enough question, and if the professor _ was _being closely monitored then she didn’t have time to waste arguing the finer points of her proposition. Her heart pounded a steady drum beat in her chest as Professor Thicket set down his tea. For a moment he seemed at war with himself, sweat beading on his forehead. The comfortable atmosphere of his study was gone as if it had never existed, unease sitting in the air like pins and needles. The butler’s disquiet was even more obvious as he shifted from foot to foot.

At once Professor Thicket sprung to his feet. Pausing only to gather his cane, he swept dramatically towards the doorway. Robin’s heart sank, and she steeled herself for yet another rejection. 

“Come with me, Nico Robin.”

He led her past the butler, down a hallway, and to a large stairway that descended to the basement of the house deep underground. Midway down the spiraling staircase Robin caught the first glimpse of a bookshelf. It took a measure of will to keep a giddy smile from her face as she realized this was where the majority of the professor’s personal library was located.

Nothing would ever compare to the Tree of Knowledge, but there was something reassuring about being surrounded by books. A library was a safe haven in a world drowning in madness, the written word buffering her against the lies and darkness of the life she had no choice but to live. For as long as Robin could remember books had been her closest friends. They couldn’t betray her, or hurt her, or try to kill her for the blood running in her veins.

Books were _ safe_, and she wanted so desperately to believe that the man who took care of this collection was the same.

Professor Thicket walked past shelves upon shelves of books to a private alcove. Here there was a comfortable overstuffed chair, a small table holding a few well-worn tomes, a quill and ink, and an empty plate. The walls were lined with half a dozen metal filing cabinets, and to Robin’s amusement there was a framed bounty of a young Edward Newgate as the room’s only decoration. 

Professor Thicket fished a keyring out of his pants pocket and opened one of the many cabinets. As he began thumbing through innumerable files he said, “I do some of my best research in this room. Penned some of my best lines. I really should get you a copy of my book, I think you’ll enjoy—oh yes. Here it is. You might want to have a seat.”

Robin opened her mouth to politely decline when he handed her a single sheet of paper. She took it without really thinking, and it took her mind several seconds to process what her eyes were seeing. When she did, the air left her in a single gasp. She sank into the overstuffed chair, bringing a hand over her mouth as if that would somehow stop the tears from gathering at the corners of her eyes. 

It was a picture of her mother. More specifically, her bounty. The thick parchment paper felt heavy in Robin’s hands, too heavy for her to hold. She could hardly believe what she was seeing, and the room suddenly felt small and claustrophobic.

Robin felt her cheeks flush red as her throat tightened with an emotion she wasn’t sure she could name. Shock? Grief, perhaps? Gratefulness for the opportunity to see the face of one she’d never meet again? Robin didn’t know, but whatever it was tumbled within her, tearing open old wounds that she’d long since buried until they pulsated anew, raw and fresh and terrible.

For a moment she even forgot her purpose in coming here today, and when she found her voice she could only ask, 

“How?”

Professor Thicket smiled indulgently. “We all need hobbies, and bounties are mine.” He indicated to the young Whitebeard hanging from his wall. “Mint first edition, back when that scallywag was naught but an overgrown puppy. All bark and no bite. But you never know who will make it big, so I keep them all. I’ve got quite the collection by now.”

Robin nodded mutely. Now that the initial shock was worn off she was able to actually look at the photograph. She almost laughed when she saw that they had the same nose, and then nearly cried when she realized they had the same _ everything_. Add ten years and a head of bleached hair and they could have been mistaken for twins. Even their bounties were identical, which the distant part of Robin’s mind that was still functioning noted made perfect sense since they were wanted for the same crimes against the World Government.

Robin could only hope to one day have the same fierceness that blazed from her mother’s eyes. 

“I have yours hidden away somewhere too,” Professor Thicket mused. “It’s amazing how often the criminal element runs in families.”

“I’m not a…”

Slowly Robin looked up from the bounty, in time to notice that the professor was no longer smiling. She moved without thinking, calling on her power to bat away the hand that was reaching into the pocket of his suit jacket. 

A gun fell to the ground, the noise of its impact deadened by a layer of thick carpet. Time slowed to a crawl, and for a moment neither of them could move. It was Robin who recovered first, acting on instinct honed from six years of protecting herself from people stronger and smarter than him.

Professor Thicket screamed as arms sprouted from his torso, two pinning his arms to his sides, two covering his mouth, and one wrapped around his throat even as she lunged for the gun. The struggle was brief and one-sided. After making sure he was restrained, Robin set her mother’s photograph onto the table with a reverence she ordinarily reserved for texts written in the Ancient Language, next to the discarded plate still covered with bread crumbs. Her eyes grew distant and unfocused as if she were looking at something far away. 

Which was appropriate, because she was. Maybe one day when she was in a more charitable mood she would thank the kind professor for installing such a thorough security system on his property. It made checking the perimeter as easy as finding the room where he kept all his monitors. 

“You were wrong about one thing, Professor,” Robin said, her voice sounding strange and detached even to her own ears. She suppressed a hiss as a cut appeared on her left palm. It seemed some of the men he called had swords. The professor must have alerted them as soon as she rang his doorbell for them to arrive so quickly. He never intended to help her, only stall for time until the marines made it from the city to his manor house.

Robin gritted her teeth and forced the pain away. She had known all along that this was a possibility, perhaps even a probability, and planned contingencies of her own. “You see, I _ have _ read your book. It’s a shame, really. A competent author could have said twice as much in half as many words.”

Her grip on his throat tightened as the professor began to writhe under her grasp. Somehow he managed to wrench his head free. “Then why are you _ here? _ I told Clover and I told you, I want _ nothing _ to do with your devil work. Why would I help you when it was _ you _ who nearly got me sent to Impel Down? I don’t even know how to read those damn stones!”

“I hoped you were a coward. Cowards, at least, can be inspired to courage, if even for a moment.” Robin was unable to keep the cynicism and bitterness from her tone as she stalked towards him, one deliberate step at a time. Perhaps it was wrong of her, but she got a vindictive satisfaction seeing him squirm.

“But hoping and expecting are two different things, and you are far, _ far _worse. You knew the truth and sold a lie instead. You slandered Professor Clover’s good name to ensure the Government would approve of your book and propagated a blatant falsehood that will be spread throughout the academic world. You’re a hack and a fraud, and yet have the audacity to call yourself a scholar. Tell me, Professor, of the two of us, which is the criminal?”

Robin could see herself in the reflection of his eyes. Professor Thicket’s face had gone ghost-white, but even though he was obviously terrified he somehow managed to sneer down at her, “You have no right to moralize, Nico Robin. Not when Ohara stole nearly everything from me. If you’re going to kill me hurry up and be done with it. There’s no point continuing this farce any longer.”

His voice trailed into a strangled choke as Robin’s grip on his throat tightened. Robin crossed her arms, blood dripping from her left palm to the pristine white carpet below.

“_Clutch.” _

Professor Thicket fell to the ground as the arms holding him disappeared in a flurry of petals. Gasping for air, he tried to push himself backwards as Robin bent down and reached into his suit jacket. He stared at her, spectacles dangling uselessly off one ear as she plucked a handkerchief from his pocket. Her eyes confirmed that the second wave of Government officials were dead outside the estate walls.

After inspecting the handkerchief to ensure it was clean, Robin wrapped it around her injured hand. “You would like it if I killed you, wouldn’t you? You would like to die a hero and a martyr.” She laughed. “Why in the world would I give you the satisfaction? I’m going to let the World Government wonder how such a pathetic little man managed to survive a confrontation with the Demon Child of Ohara.”

If possible, his eyes crew even wider. “No! No, don’t! They’ll think I helped you. Please, I’m begging—“

Robin cut him off with a murderous glare. Her hands still shook with the desire to kill the man who would abandon his teachers, his comrades, his ethics all for a bit of fame and glory. The slanderous words that propelled his career were forever burned into her mind, made worse with the knowledge that they were written to defame one of the few people to ever care for her.

Professor Clover deserved better. _ Ohara _deserved better, and even if Robin couldn’t correct the terrible falsehoods spread by a single, desperate man, she could make sure it never happened again.

“You will retire,” Robin said quietly. There was an edge to her words that seemed to cut him down, each landing like a physical blow and leaving no room for compromise or complaint. “You will not waste good ink and paper writing any more of your so-called _ theories _. Presuming you survive whatever the Government has for you, you will fade to obscurity, and in time your work will be disproven and mocked for what it is: a mean-spirited and vulgar insult to men and women much more intelligent than yourself, unworthy of any serious study or consideration. I will make sure of it.”

“Not if the World Government gets you first,” Professor Thicket spat. “_Bitch. _”

She smiled humorlessly. “That they haven’t yet speaks poorly of them.”

The professor had no answer for her. Robin, of course, had no way of making good on her threats, but he didn’t know that and she was out of time. Soon there would be more reinforcements than even she could fight off at once. Biting her tongue, Robin turned to leave the library Professor Thicket was so unworthy of.

She paused.

“I’m taking this,” she said, and took her mother’s bounty from the table. Robin glanced at the photograph for only a moment, yearning to study every line, every detail of the face she thought she’d never see again.

Instead she quickly folded it into fourths and hid it in her pocket. Robin would treasure it for as long as she was able, for she knew that she would not be able to keep something as fragile as a single piece of parchment forever. There was a reason the Ancient Kingdom hid their message on unbreakable stone instead of books.

The butler was waiting at the top of the stairway, trembling so violently he could scarcely keep a hold of the large butcher knife in his hands. Robin couldn’t decide if he was valiant or foolish to face her after seeing what she had done, and was surprised to realize she didn’t particularly care. 

“Please, just step aside. I don’t want to hurt you.”

There was a coldness in her voice that suggested otherwise, and with the slap of a phantom hand the knife clattered harmlessly to the floor. The butler’s face contorted with horror as he took a step back, then another, before tripping on his own feet as he tried to escape. He collapsed in a boneless heap, flinching as Robin walked past without even a downward glance. Even so, it was impossible not to hear the single word that escaped his quivering lips, hissed with the same venom of the blackest curse. 

“_Demon.” _

Ribs aching, hand throbbing, and heart threatening to be torn in two, Robin ran from that house that stood so proud on the top of the hill. She’d come expecting little and was still disappointed, but seeing the indomitable will that shone in her mother’s eyes even through the lens of a blurry photograph was enough to keep her hoping for a little bit longer. It didn’t matter that the people Robin should have been able to look at as allies were against her. She was already fighting the entire world.

She didn’t want to think about what would happen if that hope ever died out. She couldn’t. The legacy of Ohara, of her mother, the professor, and all the scholars that ever called the Tree of Knowledge home, rested on her small shoulders.

Robin always knew she would be the one to find the truth.

Now she knew that she would have to find it alone

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this for the Mother Sea zine, my first ever fandom project, and had a lot of fun. The final product is free to download on tumblr with a lot of great writers and artists participating, so go give it a look if you haven’t already.


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